I'm going to have to rethink my plans for rewiring the house and maybe give up part of what I wanted all together. Here's to the nice Lowe's employee who struck up a conversation with Brad and Chad and pointed out what was wrong with the way we thought we were going to do things. Chad had suggested, and I liked the idea, adding another 100 amp breaker to the outside breaker box between the meter and the main breaker box in the house, running wire from there around the house just under the eves and into a small breaker box in my room, then running wire from that box for new outlets in my room, the bathroom, and Scotty's room. Problem is, the breaker box just downwind from the meter is only rated for 120 amps. I need some time to sit back and think before I decide on an alternate plan; I'm not up to it tonight. I still want to add a new circuit or two so I can air condition my room and we can air condition the bathroom but I'm not sure how to go at the job right now.

I called the bank this morning and didn't have any trouble getting my ATM/debit card turned back on. I now have a new air conditioner for the front room on order and one for my room. I'll put off ordering one for the bathroom till I'm sure where we can plug it in. The smaller of the two we used in the front room last year can go to Scotty's room if I can figure out how to provide power for it.

The lady I need to talk to in the Vincennes Social Security office is out of the office till Thursday. I tried to call her and got her voice mail a couple of times last week but didn't work real hard at catching up with her because of the kids being here. I'm still confident the Social Security administration owes me quite a bit more money but I'll rest a little easier when I have some reassurance getting it isn't going to turn into a major hassle.

After I realized we need to rethink the wiring plans I started the guys on digging a trench for the water line to the freeze-proof hydrant I want back by the barnlot. That's one thing I definitely want done sometime before winter, even if not as urgently as adding the air conditioners. I can take some time to think about the wiring situation while they work on that.

***

The best laid plans, indeed.

The camcorder I ordered came today but I'm just now getting around to learning anything about it. I assigned my sister the task of figuring out how to shoot videos with it and teaching me later. In return she gets half ownership; it's unlikely we'll both have a critical need for it at the same time. I also told her if she'd figure out how to shoot videos and play them back on the TV I'd figure out how to transfer them to a computer and upload them to YouTube so people in Texas and Alabama and other places can watch them. I hope I didn't let my mouth overload my arse when I said I could do that. Silly me naively assumed when I saw in the description on Wal-Mart's web site that the beast would interface with a computer via USB that that meant I could transfer videos that way. Not so, apparently, just still pictures. As near as I can tell without being properly equipped to experiment, transferring videos requires an IEEE 1394 ("Firewire") interface, which none of our current computers has. On the other hand, I think the laptop I ordered does. Wal-Mart has good prices and a great return policy but sometimes it's hard to figure out just from their website what it is they're trying to sell you. I think the computer I ordered is pretty much the same animal as this one on CompUSA's web site; if it isn't I'll return it to the local store and order the one I know what is from CompUSA. It wasn't something I specifically looked for when I was shopping for a notebook but the one on CompUSA's site, and I'm guessing the one I ordered from Wal-Mart, has an IEEE 1394 port. If the one I ordered doesn't, I'll consider that reason enough to return it and buy the CompUSA version so I can transfer videos. Either that or just order a 1394 card for the laptop I bought from Wal-Mart. I'll have to see what I actually bought before I can decide anything for sure, but at this point I'm pretty confident there is a way to transfer videos from the camcorder to the web, it's just a matter of working out the details.